The lesson in 49 circles

Around circle 40, the paper started to rip.

I was doing a simple drawing exercise—take your current age, and draw the same number of circles on a sheet of paper, without lifting your pencil. It’s meant to be a quick, meditative activity that gives you a tangible sense of your years orbiting the sun.

Recently while reading about time perception, I decided to revisit this exercise. What I didn’t expect was for it to become a lesson in breaking free from routine.

From simple exercise to unexpected metaphor

For me, that meant 49 circles. And yes, I’m not afraid to admit my age. After all, age is not how old you are, but how many years of fun you’ve had.

What started as a one-minute exercise would end up taking a bit longer—and teaching me something I hadn’t anticipated about the grooves we carve in our lives.

The first attempt: finding the groove

I started with a felt-tip pen, drawing 49 small circles, each about an inch wide.

The pen quickly fell into a groove—literally and figuratively. My hand found its rhythm, repeating the exact same motion over and over. While meditative, the result was visually uninspiring: a collection of nearly identical circles marching across the page in predictable formation.

The second attempt: seeking variation

Hoping for more visual interest, I switched to pencil and made the circle larger—about four inches wide.

The pencil promised more tonal variation and the larger size should have allowed for more variance in shape. But again, my hand found its comfortable pattern. Loop after loop, I traced the same path, my pencil settling into familiar territory.

The rut becomes real

Around circle 40, something unexpected happened—the paper began to tear.

The constant retreading of the same path had worn a literal groove in the paper. I was stuck in a rut—and this rut had become so deep that my pencil would catch on it with every pass, disrupting my flow.

The metaphor reveals itself

This physical rut became an unexpected teacher. Just like in life, when we repeat the same patterns over and over, we wear grooves that become harder to escape. The comfortable becomes the inevitable. The familiar path becomes the only path.

But here’s what I learned: I had to consciously train myself to avoid that worn groove. I had to explore new areas of the circle, find fresh approaches to the same basic shape. The exercise transformed from mindless repetition into mindful navigation.

The lesson in 49 circles

What started as a simple drawing exercise became a meditation on habit, routine, and the courage to break free from well-worn paths. Sometimes we need to feel our pencil catching on life’s ruts before we realize we have the power to choose a different way around the circle.

The beauty wasn’t in the perfect repetition—it was in learning to avoid the groove and discover that even within the constraints of drawing the same shape 49 times, there was still room for exploration, still space for something new.

After all, maybe that’s what those 49 years of fun have really been about: learning when to follow the comfortable path, and when to venture into uncharted territory on the page. Each circle, like each year, offers the choice to retrace familiar ground or explore new possibilities within the same basic orbit.

Just like our trips around the Sun—sometimes the magic isn’t in the destination, but in finding fresh ways to travel the same beautiful, inevitable path.